Aron Gonshor 15Dec2011 Yiddish Book Center
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- Topics
- Yiddish Book Center, National Yiddish Book Center, Wexler Oral History Project, nybc, ybc, Yiddish, Jewish culture, Childhood, Jewish Identity, Yiddish language, Yiddish revival and activism, Yiddish scene, Immigration, Migration, Theater, Music, Literature, Books, Eastern Europe, Canada, Aron Gonshor, Montreal, Dora Wasserman Theater, Jewish Public Library
- Language
- English
Aron Gonshor, oral and maxillofacial surgeon and actor with Montreal’s Dora Wasserman’s Yiddish Theatre, was interviewed by Sara Israel on December 15, 2011 at the Montreal Jewish Public Library in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Aron starts the interview by discussing his family background. He was born in Poland after WWII and his family immigrated to Montreal in 1948 after Canada’s immigration policy became more liberal. Aron goes on to describe growing up in Montreal’s flourishing Yiddish-speaking community.
He explains how his parents were members of the Bund, which met at the Montreal branch of the Workmen’s Circle. He also describes how he grew up attending afternoon school there, at the Avrom Reisen Shul. He recalls how the Workmen’s Circle became a home, and the community there became family, for many survivors of the war. Aron explains how Bund meetings, lectures and concerts in Yiddish allowed survivors to live out their lives in a way they were used to, and created a very full, animated atmosphere. For Aron, being enveloped in this environment from childhood, speaking and performing in Yiddish was “as simple as breathing the air.”
Aron also discusses his involvement with Yiddish theatre. He describes the early days of Yiddish theatre in Montreal when Soviet-trained actress Dora Wasserman began to give theatre classes to youths at the Jewish Public Library, and traces the theatre’s development over time. He shares a particular story about traveling to Vienna with the theatre company to perform in Yiddish there and giving a particularly emotional performance of The Dybbuk. He reflects on that visit to Austria and notes that it gave the whole theatre company the understanding that they have a responsibility, as Yiddish speakers, to preserve the legacy of Jewish culture.
Towards the end of the interview, Aron urges the importance of one knowing one’s history, and speaks about the fulfillment of conveying that history to others so that the next generations can build on it.
To learn more about the Wexler Oral History Project, visit: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell-your-story
To cite this interview: Aron Gonshor Oral History Interview, interviewed by Sara Israel, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Montreal, Canada, December 15, 2011. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/AronGonshor15dec2011YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
Aron starts the interview by discussing his family background. He was born in Poland after WWII and his family immigrated to Montreal in 1948 after Canada’s immigration policy became more liberal. Aron goes on to describe growing up in Montreal’s flourishing Yiddish-speaking community.
He explains how his parents were members of the Bund, which met at the Montreal branch of the Workmen’s Circle. He also describes how he grew up attending afternoon school there, at the Avrom Reisen Shul. He recalls how the Workmen’s Circle became a home, and the community there became family, for many survivors of the war. Aron explains how Bund meetings, lectures and concerts in Yiddish allowed survivors to live out their lives in a way they were used to, and created a very full, animated atmosphere. For Aron, being enveloped in this environment from childhood, speaking and performing in Yiddish was “as simple as breathing the air.”
Aron also discusses his involvement with Yiddish theatre. He describes the early days of Yiddish theatre in Montreal when Soviet-trained actress Dora Wasserman began to give theatre classes to youths at the Jewish Public Library, and traces the theatre’s development over time. He shares a particular story about traveling to Vienna with the theatre company to perform in Yiddish there and giving a particularly emotional performance of The Dybbuk. He reflects on that visit to Austria and notes that it gave the whole theatre company the understanding that they have a responsibility, as Yiddish speakers, to preserve the legacy of Jewish culture.
Towards the end of the interview, Aron urges the importance of one knowing one’s history, and speaks about the fulfillment of conveying that history to others so that the next generations can build on it.
To learn more about the Wexler Oral History Project, visit: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell-your-story
To cite this interview: Aron Gonshor Oral History Interview, interviewed by Sara Israel, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Montreal, Canada, December 15, 2011. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/AronGonshor15dec2011YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
- Abstract
- Aron Gonshor, actor in the Montreal Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre and surgeon, was interviewed by Sara Israel on December 15, 2011 at the Montreal Jewish Public Library in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Aron's parents were Holocaust survivors who lost most of their relatives during the war. They came to Montréal in 1948 with a very young Aron and his older brother after time in a displaced persons camp in Germany. The two boys grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home and Aron attended the Avrom Reyzen Workmen's Circle shule (secular Yiddish school) after school. The family's friends, mostly Bundists, became a substitute family. Aron realizes today what a rich cultural foundation his parents and their friends provided. He recalls that many famous Yiddish writers settled in Montréal and how artists from all over the world read, lectured and performed for the close-knit Yiddishist community. Aron describes the important role that Dora Wasserman played, teaching theater arts to young people and opening their eyes to the world of Yiddish language and culture. Today, although he makes a living as an oral surgeon, what Aron loves is his work as a member of the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre Company. From the early years, they performed plays from the Yiddish cannon as well as new works commissioned by Dora. They have recently celebrated their fifty-year anniversary. Aron, along with a very large traveling company, has performed internationally. He talks about the emotions that came up when they brought Yiddish theater to Vienna, and he recognizes the gift and responsibility of performing in a language that was almost destroyed. It is interesting to note that the French and the Jews in Montréal have something in common – the desire to preserve their language and their culture. Dora made friends with some of the greats of the French-Canadian theater and even performed one of their plays in Yiddish. Aron talks about Jewish values in both the secular and religious sense. He feels that it is more important than ever in our modern world for young people to be grounded in the history of their people. He ends the interview singing "Zing shtil [Sing quietly]," looks back at his life, and feels satisfied that he made a meaningful contribution centered in Yiddishkayt.
- Addeddate
- 2012-08-08 21:58:15
- Citation
- Aron Gonshor Oral History Interview, interviewed by Sara Israel, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Montreal, Canada, December 15, 2011. Video recording, http://archive.org/details/AronGonshor15dec2011YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
- Color
- color
- Controlled-themes
- Childhood | Jewish Identity | Yiddish language | Yiddish revival and activism | Yiddish scene | Immigration and migration | Theater | Music | Literature | Books | Eastern Europe | Canada | Advice | Family histories | Holocaust | Education | Zionism | Western Europe | Politics and political movements | Cultural transmission | Urban | Travel
- Date-themes
- 1950s | 1960s | 1970s
- Excerpts
- 1236, 1237, 1238, 1239, 1240, 1242, 1292, 1293, 1294
- Geographic-themes
- Montréal, Québec | Outremont, Québec | Vienna, Austria | Eastern Europe | Canada | Western Europe
- Ia_orig__runtime
- 127 minutes 55 seconds
- Identifier
- AronGonshor15dec2011YiddishBookCenter
- Interview-date
- 12/15/2011
- Interview-location
- Montreal Jewish Public Library in Quebec, Canada
- Narrator-birth-place
- Poland
- Narrator-birth-year
- 1947
- Narrator-first-name
- Aron
- Narrator-last-name
- Gonshor
- Organization-themes
- Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theater | Jewish Public Library | Workers Circle | I.L. Peretz folkshul | Bund
- People-themes
- Aron Gonshor | Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels | Maurice Schwartz | Dora Wasserman
- Run time
- 2:07:55
- Series
-
Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists
Yiddish and the Arts: musicians, actors, and artists
- Sound
- sound
- Uncontrolled-themes
- Aron Gonshor | Montreal | Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theater | Jewish Public Library | Outremont | Vienna | Solomon Mikhoels | Maurice Schwartz | Workmen's Circle | Peretz Shul | Dora Wasserman | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | Bund | Zionism |
- Uncontrolled-themes2
- Aron Gonshor | Montréal, Québec | Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theater | Jewish Public Library | Outremont, Québec | Vienna, Austria | Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels | Maurice Schwartz | Workers Circle | I.L. Peretz folkshul | Dora Wasserman | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | Bund | Zionism
- Wohp-interview-id
- 213
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